[Aliska]

Can you ask her which Knorr's please? My local store where I can order online has several for pasta that look like PUGACHEV's link so I would have to know exactly what it says on the package.

Yeah, most people like chili hotter than I like although I have found that as I age, I am ordering hot sauce now instead of medium or mild as I used to.

Chicken and tomatoes combo never appealed to me except in an Italian restaurant ;-). Would it be ground meat or chunky? Some people make chili with beef chunks. I guess I like the ground beef. I don't like any meat that comes in those rolls, don't trust the process, they call that kind of packaging "chubs" in my online local grocery. I would buy it specially ground at the meat counter if I am going to use ground chicken or turkey. Or beef. Or pork.

I notice my favorite taco place and now the Mexican restaurant down the hill a ways their meat cooks up real fine like that pink slime. But I am used to it in their cooking. I got some ground beef at Walmart once and it cooked up real fine like that.

I mean if I had what PUGACHEV suggested I could add just a little of a packet of tomato stuff, seal it up and it should keep well for awhile. If this rice works for me, I would make it often along with refried beans or not.

A great tip I got from Chef John is to cut up a little fennel and put it in ground pork. Maybe a pinch or two of sage. But fennel seems to be the secret. I mean to try it as I can never ever find that special flavor in sausage. Nearest is MacD's which uses beef now or my old tried and true pizza place across town a ways.

[disndat]

She uses the tomato and chicken bouillon. And fresh tomatoes. Add anything else you like. Maybe I like hers so much because it is never the same twice. ;-)

I try to grind my own burger. I watch for cheap roasts, etc. on sale. The local grocery has pretty good meat but it is a lotta expensive but sometimes they run a sale on burger. I also make my own sausage. I don’t use sage. But quite a bit of fennel. Coriander, ginger, salt, and ground black pepper.

I am supposed to limit my iron intake so I don’t eat as much red meat. So it is chicken, fish, and pork usually.

[PUGACHEV]

Of course beans go well with Mexican rice. I have a routine of making enchiladas with beans and rice every Saturday night, and I start the beans Friday night. Here's my recipe for Borracho beans. Put two cups of Pinto Beans in three quarts of hot water the night before, and let them soak. Drain the water the next afternoon and refill with 2" of water above the beans. Add 1/2 Tbs of garlic powder and boil on medium high for about 1.5 hours, or until the water is just down to the beans. At this point they should be reasonably soft. Next, add two cans of Rotel tomatoes with chilies, 1 Tbs of Chili Powder, 1 Tbs of Cumin, 1 Tbs of Onion powder, +1 Tbs of Bacon Base, +1 Tbs of Roasted Garlic Base (both available from Amazon). Add 2 cups of Beer (Miller is my choice if only because I am going to drink what's left) and 1 cup of water (sometimes less), and 1/4 cup of Corn Oil. If you do not have Garlic or Bacon Base, you can use chopped garlic and chopped cooked bacon, but the flavor will not be as intense. You can also add 1 or 2 chopped jalapenos for heat, or don't add any. Boil on medium low for another hour +/-, or until the beans are really soft and would slide out of their skin. Finally, add 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 1 teaspoon of Smoke Flavor and simmer with the lid on for 15 minutes. Let it cool and serve. Adding salt before you are almost finished toughens the bean and makes everything harder to cook.

If you look hard you can find a legacy bean known as an Anasazi bean. They look like pintos, same size and shape, but are a bit sweet, and do not need to be soaked at all. You can cook them to soft in 1 hour. You can substitute Anasazi beans for pinto beans if you like.